“Snow is better than this mess. I hate icy drizzle.” Missy’s curly brown hair surrounded her round face like a halo, water droplets sparkling on the ringlets. “What are you doing out here?”
“I didn’t want to go inside.”
“Don’t blame you.” Missy watched Grandma Ellen, who was looking out the window, no doubt drawn there by the sound of Missy’s broken exhaust pipe. “She doesn’t look happy.”
“She’s been acting weird the past few days.”
Missy’s eyes widened. “You think she knows you drugged her?”
Kristen flushed. “I didn’t drug her! I told her the tea would make her sleep, which it did. She told me the next morning she’d slept most of the night, too, so it worked just fine.” Kristen shrugged, her gaze moving back to the front window. “I don’t know why, but she’s been really quiet lately, and I’ve caught her watching me as if she thinks I robbed a bank or something.”
“Weird. It’s also sort of weird to sit in your car in the driveway, unless, of course, you’re making out with a guy. Are you okay?”
Kristen sent Missy a hard side glance.
Missy threw her hands up. “Right. That was a ridiculous thing to say. Of course you aren’t okay. I just meant—”
“Don’t be stupid.” Kristen shrugged, although she felt more like gritting her teeth. “I’m tired, that’s all.”
Missy nodded sympathetically. “I’m glad I’m here, then, but can you turn on your heater? I’m cold. That rain was like ice water.”
Kristen slid her key back into the ignition, and the car jolted to life. Since she’d just parked, warm air instantly streamed into the car.
Missy cupped her hands over the nearest vent. “That’s so much better, I— Good Lord, is your grandma vacuuming the curtains?”
“Dove Pond is too dusty for her.”
“Huh. My mom just takes them down and throws them in the wash. Works every time.”
Kristen couldn’t remember her mom ever washing the curtains. They probably needed vacuuming and washing. “That’s what she’s been doing. She cleans, vacuums, and watches me as if she thinks I might explode or something.”
“Impressive.” Missy rubbed her hands together, her gaze suddenly a little sharper. “So… since I’m here… Did you get it done? You said you took a bunch of stuff out of your mom’s trunk and had to go through it. You’ve had plenty of time now.”
“I finished late last night. I made of list of suspects.” Kristen reached behind her seat and grabbed her book bag. She pulled it to her lap, slipped out a creased piece of notebook paper, and then returned the backpack to the floorboard. “It took me a while to go through all of Mom’s stuff, or I would have finished sooner.”
Missy looked eagerly at the paper. “How many?”
“Three.” She handed the paper to Missy.
“That’s all?” There was no disguising the disappointment in Missy’s voice.
“The fewer the better.”
“I guess so. I just thought it would be more fun if there were a bunch.” She started to unfold the paper, but then she glanced at Kristen and paused. “Know what we need before we look at this? A latte.”
“I can’t go now. Grandma Ellen’s already seen me.”
“No problem.” Missy pulled out her phone. Her thumbs flew over the screen.
“What are you doing?”
“Ordering caramel lattes with two—no, let’s make that three—extra pumps. Or I am if Josh’s phone cooperates. That thing is complete trash and—ah. There he is. He said no problem. He was sitting in the Moonlight when I drove past on my way here, so he won’t be long.”
A three-pump latte while sitting in her car with her friends in the rain. Life wasn’t so bad, Kristen decided. Mom would approve.
Missy dropped her phone into the cup holder. “I told him we were here in the car, so he won’t go to the door.”
Inside the house, Grandma Ellen waved, gesturing for them to come in.
Kristen pointed at Missy and waved to say no, thank you.
Grandma Ellen gave a tight smile and then disappeared from sight.
Missy watched the exchange with interest. “I’m glad the tea worked. Pity your grandma is still passive-aggressiving you to death.”
“More aggressive than passive now. This morning during breakfast, she announced about eight times that she couldn’t take off much more time from work.”
Missy rolled her eyes. “Josh is right; it’s surprising she hasn’t been more forceful. Personally, I think she’s afraid you’ll run off the way your mom did.”
Kristen stared at the window Grandma Ellen had just left. “If she thinks I’m runaway material, then she doesn’t know me well.”
“She doesn’t know you at all. I wouldn’t tell her she’s wrong about that, though. It’s in your favor to keep her afraid you might bolt. I— Oh! There’s our lattes.”
A battered van had pulled up on the street. Josh hopped out, carrying a tray of three drinks. He hurried toward them, his hood pulled up to protect him from the rain. He slid into the back seat and closed the door. “The windows are so fogged up, I wasn’t sure who was in here.”
“Latte me!” Missy reached into the back seat.
Grinning, Josh handed out the drinks. He took one sip and then said, “Well? How many dad candidates are there?”
“Three.” Kristen took the lid off her latte and blew on it.
“That’s all?”
“That’s what I said too,” Missy said. “I was hoping there’d be at least a dozen.”
“Three is plenty.” Kristen held her coffee cup in both hands, soaking in the warmth.
Josh took a noisy sip. “So what’s the plan?”
“We ask, we find, and Kristen is rescued,” Missy declared. “Simple.”
Kristen wasn’t convinced it would be that easy. “If you ask me, that list has two too many maybe-dads.” When Josh had first come up with this idea, Kristen had loved it. She’d even been excited. But over the past few days, doubts had begun to worm their way into her thoughts. Other than that one time long ago, she’d never wanted to know her father. And having to look for him like this, already needing something from him, made it even worse.
“Do we know any of these guys?” Josh asked.
“Sort of,” Kristen said.
Missy put her coffee down and picked up the folded paper. “Shall I?”
“Might as well. I just hope one of them is my dad. We’re just guessing, you know. There was a lot of stuff in that trunk, but not one piece of paper that read, ‘Kristen’s father is…’ ”
“That would have been nice,” Missy admitted. “How did you decide these guys might be the ones?”
“I found an unfinished letter stuck between the pages of an old book. That led me to Mom’s yearbooks.”
Mom had written to a friend of hers where she’d airily claimed, I find it funny that, for the future father of my baby, I chose the guy who wrote such a corny poem in my yearbook. I guess it really does pay to know how to rhyme.
That had been the one and only clue. After reading that, Kristen had gone through Mom’s yearbooks one at a time, looking for poems, and had found these three.
Missy had unfolded the paper. “Jack Lind,” she announced, then frowned. “I thought you said we knew all of them?”
“We’ve seen him around,” Kristen said. “He owns the new property management company in that office over by Doc Bolton’s. He lives in Asheville but has a house here, too.”
Josh asked, “Does he drive a black Audi?”
“He has a black car. I guess it’s an Audi.”
“Oh, I know that guy,” Missy said. “I’ve seen him driving through town. Nice car, good job, great hair. So far, so good.” She read the next name. “Nate Stevens. Everyone knows him.”
Kristen nodded. “He’s got the only hardware store in town.”
Josh took another noisy sip of coffee. “My mom says he’s a dead ringer for that guy in Ou
tlander.”
“Jamie Fraser,” Missy said dreamily. “They do look a lot alike.”
Josh and Kristen looked at Missy, who said in a defensive tone, “What? My mom watches it, not me.”
Kristen didn’t believe that for a minute. “I know Mr. Stevens, but not well.”
“Dad and I go to his store all the time,” Josh said. “Mr. Stevens seems cool. I like him.”
“He’s cute, that’s all I know,” Missy said. “I bet all of these guys are fine. Your mother was an artist, so she’d be attracted to good-looking guys.” She returned to the list. “And number three is…” Her eyes widened, and she stared at Kristen. “Are you serious?”
If only I weren’t. “That one’s going to be tricky.”
“Who is it?” Josh leaned over the seat, trying to see the paper over Missy’s shoulder.
She turned it so he couldn’t, her gaze still on Kristen. “If he figures out what we’re doing, he’ll tell your grandmother.”
Kristen nodded miserably.
“Big yikes.” Missy didn’t look happy, but she tried to lighten the moment by saying, “Still, he’s not bad-looking for an older guy. Your mom had great taste.”
“Missy, stop. I don’t care what he looks like. I just need him to be cool enough to let me stay here in Dove Pond, even if Grandma Ellen makes a fuss.”
“Who is number three?” Josh asked impatiently.
Missy sighed. “Blake McIntyre.”
“The sheriff? Oh wow. That’s awkward.”
“Tell me about it,” Kristen muttered. “We should save him for last. If one of these other guys is my dad, then we’d just be wasting our time trying to talk to him anyway.”
“No kidding.” Missy refolded the paper and handed it to Kristen, who tucked it into her shirt pocket. “So those are our targets.”
“What do we do now?” Josh asked.
That was the big question, wasn’t it? “I don’t know,” Kristen admitted. “I guess we’ll have to talk to them. But before I ask a guy if he’s my father, we should at least make sure the timeline works out.”
“Right.” Missy’s brow furrowed. “We need to count back from your birthday, which means your mom would have been dating this guy…”
Kristen had a lot of patience, but she knew better than to expect Missy to do math without a calculator. “August or September 2004. Or somewhere around there.”
“So right off the bat, you need to find out which of these guys was dating your mom during those months.”
“Wow.” Josh grinned over the top of his coffee cup. “This is awesome. I feel like we’re in a movie.”
“Yeah, a horror movie,” Kristen said.
“No, no,” Missy protested. “This is one of those epic movies from the Hallmark channel. We’re going to find your dad and you’re going to stay here in Dove Pond and live happily ever after, and when that happens, we’ll film a montage of ourselves sipping coffee and laughing and dancing at junior prom, and… and… doing all sorts of things.”
“If that’s how it ends up. It’s just…” Kristen put her latte down, her chest suddenly tight. “Missy, what if my dad doesn’t want to know me?”
A stunned silence met her words.
“Of course he’ll want to know you,” Missy scoffed. “Why wouldn’t he? If I had a long-lost daughter, I’d want to know her. I’d want her to be just like you, too. Except younger, of course.”
Josh added, “It’s not like you’re going to be a burden. You have your own house and car and money. You really just need him to get your grandma off your back.”
“Exactly.” Missy sent Josh a grateful glance that made him beam. “What dad wouldn’t want to find out he had a daughter under circumstances like that? Heck, I wouldn’t mind finding out I had an unknown daughter if that was the way things were. She could take me out to dinner once in a while and maybe buy me a new purse. I’d let her do that.”
Kristen wished she could be as certain as they were that their desperate plan would succeed. Right now, all she felt was sad, lost, and anxious. She picked up her latte and tried to tell herself that things would work out. They had to.
“Oh look!” Missy leaned forward so she could see out Kristen’s side window. “There’s Sarah Dove.”
Three doors down, a pickup truck had pulled up to the Dove house, which was painted a delicate mauve. Sarah climbed out of the truck dressed in an orange flowered raincoat and matching boots, her blond hair pulled to one side in a loose ponytail. She popped open a bright yellow umbrella and pulled out a stack of books from where they rested in the back seat.
Missy watched, seemingly mesmerized. “Mom says Sarah always takes books home with her, not to read but to visit.”
“She’s got to be a huge reader, though,” Josh said. “I mean, if books talked to me, I’d read more of them.”
Missy glanced at Kristen. “Has Sarah ever brought you a book?”
“Once when I was ten years old,” Kristen said wistfully. “I wish she would bring me more.”
“She once brought me a book on coin collecting, and two days later I found a wheat penny. A real one.”
“Those aren’t worth that much,” Josh said.
“They’re rare. I— Look! She’s coming this way.”
Sarah’s umbrella bobbed as she hurried down the sidewalk, her orange boots splashing whenever she hit a puddle. She came up to the car and bent over to smile at them.
Kristen opened her window, glad the umbrella kept the rain out.
“I’m so glad I saw you all out here.” Sarah handed not one but four books to Kristen.
Missy leaned forward eagerly.
Kristen blinked. “All of these are for me?”
“The top three are. They said you weren’t sleeping, so…” Sarah patted the stack.
Kristen looked at them. Terry Brooks’s Sword of Shannara trilogy. She’d read them a few years ago and had loved them.
“They won’t help you sleep, but now you’ll have some company.” Sarah tapped the top book. “They’re very excited to be reread. For a book, there is no higher honor.”
Well, that was something. To be honest, it was bone-achingly lonely at night when Grandma Ellen was in bed and the world was echo-silent. Kristen eyed the colorful cover, and her heart warmed a little. Rereading a favorite book was like coming home, something she hadn’t felt in a while. “It’ll be nice to have something else to think about.”
Sarah nodded as if she’d expected Kristen to say that. “Books are warriors. If you let them, they’ll fight off boredom, pain, fear, even loneliness.” She bent a little lower so she could see Missy. “The bottom one is for you.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Missy eagerly reached for the book, but her smile disappeared the second she freed it from the pile. “This is a physics book.”
“You have a test or something, I think?” Sarah wasn’t really asking. It was obvious she already knew the answer. “From what the book said, you’re not doing great in that class and could use a little extra help.”
Missy’s face turned bright red, and her shoulders drooped. “Thank you,” she said in a chastened tone.
Josh leaned forward. “Anything for me?”
“Not this time,” Sarah said. “But I’ll keep an ear out.”
Disappointed, he nodded.
“I’d better get home and start supper. Ava will be home soon and—” Sarah’s brows lowered, and she turned to look over her shoulder. “Do you hear that?”
Kristen and Missy exchanged a look. “Hear what?” Kristen asked.
“That thumping.” Sarah tilted her head to one side, her gray-green eyes narrowed. “It’s been going on for about a week now. I’ll hear it, and then it’ll go away, and I— Oh.” She waved her hand, her smile back. “It’s gone now. Someone must be playing their music too loud, which is so annoying I—” She caught Kristen’s gaze, and her smile slipped. “You didn’t hear it, did you.”
Kristen and Missy both shook their he
ads.
“It’s just me, then.” Sarah gave an uncertain laugh. “Maybe my hearing is better than I thought. Whatever it is, I’d better go start supper. I’ve been trying to help Ava out by making sure there’s something on the table when she gets home.”
“She’s been working hard,” Kristen agreed. “How’s the peppermint plant doing?” She was still a little embarrassed about that whole incident.
“Much better. It’s only a little wilted now, so it’s coming along.”
That was something, Kristen supposed. “I hope it heals.”
“It will. It will just take time.” Sarah flashed a comforting smile. “Enjoy the books.” Her umbrella held close, she headed home.
Kristen closed the window before the rain fell on the books in her lap.
Missy dropped her book onto the floorboard, where it landed with a thud. “Of all the books she could give me, she picks a stupid physics book. What the heck.”
“You’ve got to pass that class if you want to graduate,” Josh said. “Maybe that book explains things better than the textbook, which sucks. If my dad couldn’t explain that stuff to me, I’d be failing too.”
Missy flushed. “I’m not failing!”
“Sorry! I just thought—”
“Don’t think. It’s annoying.”
He sighed and started collecting his things. “I’ve got to get home. I guess we’ll start with Nate Stevens first thing tomorrow after school. Right?”
Tomorrow? That’s so soon! Kristen’s chest tightened even more. “I can’t do it tomorrow. Ava’s expecting a shipment of table linens and she can’t be there to sign for them, so I said I would. I work Friday evening and most of the weekend, too. Ava’s really determined to get the tearoom back on track.” Kristen was making excuses and she knew it, but she wasn’t ready for this. She needed some time to think things through.
Josh looked disappointed. “What about Monday, then? We can stop by the hardware store after school.”
“Isn’t that Valentine’s Day?”
He shrugged. “So? None of us are dating anyone. I don’t know about Mr. Stevens, but he works as much as Ava does. I bet he’ll be there.”
They looked expectantly at Kristen.
She couldn’t think of an excuse, so she said glumly, “I guess that will work. We just need to be sure I’m home on time. The Frosty One is acting suspicious.”
A Cup of Silver Linings Page 15